The Longish Goodbye: Highlights From AllThingsD Staffers Johnson, Del Rey and Cha

I don’t know why you say hello, we say goodbye.
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DoubleDown: Women Bet More Than Men in Social Casino Games

Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya, ma’am?

Don’t Regulate Me, Bro! Social Casino Companies Band Together to “Inform” Lawmakers.

The social casino gaming trade group ISGA wants to stop government regulation before it can start. Whether it’s going to start is another question.
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News Byte

New Jersey’s Online Gambling Planned to Start in Late November

Online gambling in New Jersey will soft-launch on Nov. 21 and then launch in earnest on Nov. 26, the Associated Press reports. The state’s Gaming Enforcement Division will use the soft launch to make sure the participating landed casinos’ Web partnerships work as expected, according to the report. Analysts expect the global real-money online gambling market to reach $40 billion in annual revenue by 2015.

IGT Not Deterred by Zynga Scrapping Real-Money Gambling Plans

“What Zynga’s finding out is that breaking into real-currency wagers is a difficult thing.”

News Byte

Bee Cave Games Raises $1.3 Million Round of Seed Funding

Bee Cave Games, the developer of the social casino game Blackjack Casino, has closed a $1.3 million seed round of funding led by Matrix Partners. The round is aimed at helping the company grow and continue to support its existing game, which is available on Facebook. Last month, Zynga co-founder Eric Schiermeyer became a board advisor and investor in Bee Cave.

Skillz Says Real-Money Betting in Mobile Games Is Paying Off

Good news from real-money gaming advocates, just not the ones you’ve thought about before now.

Zynga’s Big Bet on Real-Money Gaming to Launch This Week in the U.K.

Big money! Big prizes! (Just not in the U.S. quite yet.)

News Byte

Zynga Game Vets Raise $1.4 Million to Start Bee Cave Games

Bee Cave Games has raised $1.4 million in funding to build casino games. The Austin, Texas, company was founded by Erik Bethke, Nimai Malle and Jeremy Strauser, all of whom worked at Zynga on games, including Mafia Wars, Texas Hold’em Poker and Bingo. The round was funded in part by its own employees and from publicly held Glu Mobile. The company’s first game, Blackjack Casino, is in private beta on Facebook, and there are mobile versions under development.

Zynga Bringing Real-Money Gaming to Facebook in the U.K.

Allowing Zynga to conduct real-money gaming in the U.K. on Facebook will open the floodgates for gambling on the social network.